A Road Trip To Graz.

An adventure for us.

Bob has a nice bit of leave and we decided to take a day to drive to nowhere and everywhere. Our destination was Graz via the old road but as we got there but during a misty and rainy spell, we converted our plans to sight-seeing by car and had a fabulous time. Not often one gets to send quality time sans computer, TV or phone. Traffic of course made us appreciate the gentle surrounds of Eisenberg and also remember the heady days of Pietermaritzburg rush hour traffic. How on earth did we cope?

Bob is a navigator par excellence and merely needs to look at a map before leaving and with the odd detour gets to every destination. Austria must be going through a rather abundant phase as there was construction everywhere. ( The ' cheap money ' has got its hook into many a company and person who seem to forget that eventually the interest rate will rise. ) Roads were detoured, cars halted and tempers frayed...no no, not ours. Building, building and more building. With a bit of help from yours truly, we wound our way along the back roads to Graz.

Apart from the rather dampened weather it was great to be able drive through a mix of old and new houses which comprises most villages. Every house encases a story about its owners and some hold the highs and lows of several generations while others are obviously newly erected concrete blocks on old family grounds.

Driving past many a derelict or empty house made me think of how fleeting our time is. Even in our village one can see the stark reminder of end of sagas. Many a family have spent a lifetime in their homes, caring for it, battling for it and raising a family in it but once the hollow existence of retirement homes beckons, the house returns to what it actually is...mere bricks and mortar which outlived lifetimes.

Living in one spot one tends to forget how absolutely beautiful other parts of a country are and Austria is no exception. Today we sedately drove around Steiermark and Burgenland and because we chose to ignore the highway could absorb all those lovely little details that countrysides tend to hold.

Biggi